


to not be alone

by Control_Room



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Death, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Song Lyrics, Suicide, interdimensional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 21:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18925534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room
Summary: Johan gets called to his friend.No.Not exactly.





	to not be alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenghostlyjekyll](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=greenghostlyjekyll).



> Egg/Stripes is @greenghostlyjekyll’s on tumblr

Johan did not much like the invitation he received. He knew that it was not from Easter Egg. No, it was from… the original. Just him. Egg.

 

It made him shiver with apprehension. 

 

He knew very vague details about this form of his dear friend, and none of them were quite flattering. To say the utmost least.

 

Honestly, he worried for him - it was not concern, but worry.

 

So he went.

 

The hovering, tired looking, typing receptionist pointed him to where he should go.

 

He slipped in after knocking.

 

His friend-not-friend was sitting in his chair, leaning back and studying him with an apathetic eye.

 

Johan suppressed a shiver.

 

“Can I help you?” he asked softly.

 

“Maybe,” Egg answered. “Maybe not.”

 

“Wonderful,” Johan remarked dryly, eyeing the objects on the desk, a letter opener, a few hastily scrawled on papers, a glass of ink. None of those were good. He did not sit when Egg indicated him to do so. “And why did you ask me to come?”

 

“So that maybe you can help me.”

 

“And how?”

 

Egg grinned, a scowly mockery of the expression. Johan’s neutral face remained the same.

 

“Our worlds are like… snow globes,” Egg hummed. “Us main three. We can see into each other’s places and can do fuck all.”

 

Johan stiffened slowly, ears tilting back onto an alert.

 

“And I was thinking, how fun would it be to, y’know, go off and kill them?” his grin widened, and Johan flinched. Ah. So it was so. “What do you think? Let me into their world?”

 

“No.” Johan shook his head. “You and I both know that won’t do anything, anyways. It’ll just make bad memories for all three of you.”

 

“Not exactly,” Egg muttered, shifting, eyes squinting, this smile now the scowl it had masked. “So you won’t?”

 

Johan sighed and pushed himself off of the wall he leaned on, walking to the desk and knocking everything off it, the glass falling with a tinkle, not breaking.

 

“No.” he said simply, stepping onto the letter opener, keeping it down.

 

Egg’s expression darkened in anger.

 

“Calm there, buddy,” Johan murmured, walking over to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, okay? We don’t need to do anything brash….”

 

Egg looked at him with a murderous anger, and then a smug overbearing grin.

 

His gaze flicked to the glass on the floor.

 

Johan’s followed, and his shoulders slumped. 

 

“So you already went and did it, eh?” he sighed.

 

Egg said nothing.

 

Johan stayed where he was, hand on Egg’s shoulder.

 

It started to go up and down, a comforting motion.

 

Egg glanced up at him.

 

Why was he… doing this?

 

He expected him to get mad, to yell, to shout, to argue with him, to storm out, and yet… his hand continued on his arm, up and down.

 

The silence of nothing but dripping ink drilled into his head, each drop counting away a second.

 

Johan did not stir, he did not look at Egg, he merely rubbed his arm gently.

 

Egg felt his head nodding, eyes drifting shut.

 

“Why?” he murmured in askance. 

 

“Hm?” Johan replied, processing. “Because no one should feel alone. Especially not when….”

 

Here he paused and sighed, leaning down to hug him. Egg froze. He could not remember the last time he had been hugged. Wet touched his eyes, and his arms wrapped around himself, but not himself, a man one of himself knew as a brother, who took it into his own hands (literally) to comfort him at the end.

 

“I’m sorry,” Johan quietly whispered, arms tightening. “Th-that I can’t help you at all….”

 

Egg squeezed his eyes shut.

 

He did not deserve this, but still, he clung to him.

 

“It’s okay,” Johan breathed, almost as though he were assuring himself. “It’s okay, okay?”

 

Egg did not say anything.

 

It was not okay.

 

Still, he held tight to him.

 

Johan’s hand went up and down on his back, waves of calm and gentle ‘I am here’s.

 

“I get it,” Johan murmured. “Feelin’ like you can’t do anything, like you’ll never get out of cycles… I know. Shit, that shit hurts like hell….”

 

Egg’s pained scowl formed into a grimace. No one ever seemed to understand him. He had always been him, always alone.

 

“Should I sing for you?” Johan asked softly. “Might help the fade.”

 

Egg did not speak, but hugged him tighter and nodded a little, head by Johan’s chest, resting over his pin, feeling and hearing the thump thump of his heartbeat.

 

“Hold me tight,” Johan began after a moment, “‘Cause I can feel it coming in tonight….”   
  


Egg sighed, his eyes drifting shut again.

 

“Dark and drive, forebode and loom,” Johan’s tones were sonorous. Egg felt darkness ebb at his vision, just like falling asleep…. “It’s tonight that I can sense they’ve damned my doom….”

 

Egg’s breathing slowed, heart slowing.

 

“So I ask you hold me close,” Johan closed his eyes to keep from crying. Egg’s feet and hands felt cold and numb. “To keep it from being morose….”

 

“I won’t be here in the morning,” Johan continued as Egg stilled slowly. “No, I won’t, so don’t bother with mourning….”

 

Egg’s rigid body slumped, a sigh escaping him, his final breath.

  
  


Johan wept.

 

He hugged his friend as tight as he could, kissing his forehead and leaning him back into his chair, watching mutely as ink edged onto him.

 

Taking him away.

 

Johan was silent, watching his friend’s body disappear into the ink, and melt away.

 

Tears dripped down his face, dripping into the puddle that remained.

 

His shoulders droop, and he turned away in respect for the dead.

 

And left.

 

The receptionist did not bother asking about his tears, nor question them.

 

For a moment, Johan’s hand wavered over the door knob to Easter’s world.

 

His heart was too heavy.

 

His hand dropped.

 

He opened the door to his own dimension, and slipped wordlessly inside. 

 

Alone.

 

He knew how bad it felt to be alone.


End file.
